Page 126 of Wings of Destruction

Helps me tune into Kieran and the grace of his movements.

“Has anyone ever told you? You pack a fierce punch, princess,” he growls. “Maybe I need to choose a different name for you. Princess implies you’re soft and supplicant.”

“Easy, you mean.”

Blood splatters decorate the wooden floor beneath us, and the grain sucks it up hungrily. Some of it is mine but most of it is Evie’s. Hopefully it will soon be Kieran’s as well.

In my village, it isn’t unheard of for potential riders to fight. It helped distinguish them from the rest of the others fairly young. Nature isn’t the only place where survival of the fittest determines pecking order.

I haul my fist toward the stubble decorating Kieran’s sharp jaw again. I don’t need the top spot. I only need to get out of this place.

“Like a little viper, perhaps?” Kieran whispers.

He hooks a leg around mine and uses my own forward motion against me. I land hard on my side, roll, but he drives down after me this time. I flip onto my stomach as his palms slap the floor.

“I’m not little.”

Viper I can handle. I’ll gladly poison him.

I’m up in the next beat and anticipating the way he rises with me, reaching out like he’s going to brush a finger to my split lip. Trembling, I hold steady.

His brown eyes lock with mine. “Maybe I need to call you Havoc instead. Or Fury. You are so full of anger you practically pulse with it.”

I swallow the insult I want so desperately to throw. I grab him around the midsection this time with the full weight of my body. The force drives him backwards and somewhere across the dining room, an onlooker screeches in shock.

He knocks against the long dining table and candelabras and reset silverware clank obnoxiously together. I catch a flash of his grin, then⁠—

Kieran loops an arm around my head and traps me in a headlock. I buck wildly, cursing him, but he tightens his arm, the crook of his elbow on my neck. My arms slap wildly for purchase.

One of them lands at the center of his stomach and the other on the table edge and I push. My head doesn’t pop free.

I only choke myself in the process.

I’m losing. It irks me more than it ordinarily would because Kieran isn’t fighting back. Not like the jerks I’ve kicked in my youth where we’re both struggling for dominance, prepared to do what it takes to best each other.

Kieran is defending himself and it’s pissing me off.

“This would be a more effective attempt if I weren’t in my leathers.” He practically purrs it in my ear. “You fight with skill and ferocity, Fury. I like it. I think you have the makings of a fine soldier if you receive the proper training. Right now, you are no better than a child throwing a tantrum.”

He’s not supposed to like anything about me.

“I could make this easier for you.” He adjusts his hold. “Remove these barriers between us. But something tells me you’d find that infinitely more dangerous than what we’re doing now.”

“Put her in her place, Kieran!” someone cheers.

I scream and struggle against his hold, clawing my nails against him when his arm tightens. He’s got the height and the weight to really do some damage but he’s not. He’s not stepping over the line to take me down.

Instead, he’s some kind of benevolent lord, and I’m supposed to be grateful for his mercy. My chest tightens and I barely breathe, dragging air into my nose.

“You’re only hurting yourself. You’re not a bear with a leg caught in a trap. There’s no reason for you to gnaw off your own leg,” he adds.

Under different circumstances, he’d be correct. Normally I’d never let myself be put in this position. Now there’s no way out of it. If he squeezes any tighter, I’ll pass out. The redness across my vision recedes, replaced by stars.

Kieran is an experienced fighter. I saw his deadly effectiveness on the field. His hits are powerful and purposeful. It’s a lethal combination and sets him miles apart from the others at the academy.

He has experience.

“Just do it!” I yell. “Just kill me, then.”